Sofie’s wedding – reportage style

Its not gonna rain, its not gonna rain its not gonna rain.

It rained all day. 🙁

I was really fortunate to be able to photograph this wedding of Sofie and Dries. I know Sofie since quite some years now (she’s our boy’s optometrist) and last year she asked me if I could assure her weddings pictures.

I do not especially promote myself as a wedding photographer, but whenever I’m asked to do one, I’ll make sure to fit it into my planning. Wedding photography is a hard job, getting up early, make sure you capture all the important moments of the day, and often stay up late in the evening. This wedding was a bit of an exception, since Sofie only wanted coverage from 10 am, till about 9 pm.

Wedding photography is often also fun, because people are in a good mood, there’s a lot of emotions, a lot of old friends coming over etc. etc. Later in the day, as the tension fades, happiness is becoming the main feeling of the event.

I love treating a wedding day as a reporter, and this is what this post is about. Not the average couple and family shots, but all the things happening in between important moments.

Enjoy a look behind the scene’s on the wedding of Sofie and Dries, a typical Flemish wedding day.

thank you for watching,

ludwig

Ines at the Mansion

beauty, exhibition, Personal Pictures

I love it when I get people in for a shoot that have absolutely no experience with modeling. They are so much easier to talk into a ‘natural behavior’ than the wannabe models that stick to the 10 poses they learnt by heart. Two weeks ago, Ines came to the Mansion. She travelled for about three hours by train to get here. Thank you Ines, for doing this effort for this shoot. You were a wonderful model, fun to work with, a beautiful, smooth skin and very open in conversation. All these things make her into a real ‘natural beauty’. She confessed she had gone trough about every post in this blog, before she decided to come to Ronse.

The Mansion is in full preparation for our upcoming group exhibit I talked about previously. This means a lot of works still going on, and a big rush to get the ground level ready for the exhibit, but also some new furniture items arriving now and then, and that is of course of great use for my photography.

I hope you like the images, one image from Ines will also be shown in the exhibit itself. I’ll make sure to post some images when the exhibit has opened.

thank you for reading

ludwig

Beautiful Tuscany

landscapes, people, Personal Pictures

Well, vacation is long over, and almost forgotten (almost)

Luckily someone invented photography a couple of hundred years ago.

I don’t want to write a lot of words on this post, only this. The evening we wanted to pack the car for our trip to Italy (2 and a half weeks Tuscany), it broke down.

So no large wagon with rooftop luggage trunk, but only a small Toyota Yaris. This meant a total review of the luggage, which meant I had to leave half of my photo equipment at home. No tripod, that was the biggest drawback for me. But anyway, no other solution possible, and a big challenge for taking landscape images. Normally you want to use closed apertures, meaning long shutter speeds. Well, not possible this time. I had to crank up ISO settings from time to time, which you normally do not for landscape work. To give you an idea, first image: ISO 160 – 17mm – f11 – 1/8th of a second. Last image, ISO 800 – 50mm – f3.2 – 1/25th.

Hope you like the images, I could’n leave the dog out, having its daily portion of ‘gelato’ like everyone else.

happy viewing,

thank you for looking!

My photography is becoming -me-

Personal Pictures

Just a quick post this early morning, but one I feel like I need to share.

I had an interesting discussion yesterday, with a mom of a class mate of my youngest son.

She saw a huge panorama print hanging on the wall in our living room, and was overwhelmed with the beauty of it (says the humble me 😉 )

We were discussing about my work, and I told her I have my work currently exposed in a beautiful interior and furniture warehouse (www.pinehouse.be)

I was talking also about the upcoming exhibition, and about the fact that the new exhibition will feature only beauty portraits, not landscapes.

In the discussion, while talking about the different subjects I have tackled so far, it became suddenly clear to me that although the subjects can be totally different, the images are always an expression of the same -me- .

Be it a landscape, a still life, a beauty portrait or something else, I think I’m starting to get a common denominator in my photography and that is – the way I see things – . I am touched by the beauty of a misty forest, a wandering gaze in the eyes of a model, or a fascinating detail in the urban environment we are living in. I am by far not a landscape photographer pur sang, I am not a fashion photographer by far, or an architectural photographer, but I start to express myself in a personal way.

I have wondered for a while now which subject appeals to me the most, well I still can’t decide on that, but it won’t matter as much anymore. I’ll probably keep photographing different subjects all the way, and find beauty in all of them. One of my great inspirations is Jean-Loup Sieff, probably because of his wide portfolio of subjects, and hey! they quite match my preferences.

Nathalie M. at the Mansion

beauty, Personal Pictures

Still working hard at the mansion, doing natural beauty shoots whenever I find the time.

I never prepare these shoots I must tell, I prefer working into the magic of the moment, and taking instantaneous decisions based on the conditions of that day, based on the mood I am in, and the model I am working with. The results are varying of course, but always a true result of a spontaneous collaboration. The mansion is still being renovated, and some places are unusable, while others are near finished. I can’t but express my feelings of joy for being able to expose my work in the mansion soon. I will try to show the images in the same place they were taken, to make a direct link with the building and the atmosphere that reigns in every room.

enough talking, here are the images. Thank you Nathalie, for being my model that early morning, thank you to the owners of the place, for letting me in.

All images with Canon 5D mark II and Canon 50mm f1.4, Canon 85mm f1.8 and Canon 135mm f2 L. Processing in Lightroom 5.

Thank you for watching, come again soon!

ludwig

My Nude (In)cognito project

Personal Pictures, projects, Uncategorized

Portfolioproject end module photography

The last part of the degree in photography at KISP exists in a portfolio project from each of the students. He/She needs to develop his/her own project, during the last 5 months of the training. This happens under supervision of an internal mentor (KISP-teacher) and an external mentor, free of choice. The final works will be presented in an exhibit open to the public, and judged by a panel of professionals in the field.

Vision

The sixties from the last century, and in particular the late sixties, are book-marked as the era of ‘sexual revolution’. Contraceptive medicine had led to a great self decisive power within the feminine part of the population, in the possibility to prevent pregnancy, and sexuality could be experienced a lot less restricted.

About 40 years from that date, we see a huge amount of pornographic material, freely available on the internet, a quantity still growing at an amazing speed, with new adult sites emerging every day.

At the same time we can experience a sexualisation of general media, and in particular in TV advertising, entering our homes every day. A woman looks slim and her body shows no signs of ageing, she is always available, expresses sexual lust, and is being exploited in this manner.

This message has gained a very high level of tolerance, and is rarely critiqued.

In very high contrast to this stands the reality of an everyday individual. When I, as a photographer, contact people for modelling in an artistic nude photo session, then their first concern is the possible reaction they will get from relatives, partners, employers or colleagues.

The individual freedom of being naked, and being able to express yourself in nude art, in a feeling of confidence is clearly not a general state of mind. The taboo about the personal body of each individual has clearly not disappeared, maybe even become stronger than in the late sixties.

Mission

Provide an answer to the still existing taboo about personal nudity, and carefully try to respond to the will of individuals to express nakedness, by photographing them in an artistic way, be it anonymous or recognisable, AND to give a place to their doubts, their feelings about nudity and their fears for the reactions from other people.

Goal

Photograph at least 10 individuals in an artistic nude photo session. The images can be anonymous or clearly identifiable, to the choice of the individual. From each session a selection will be withheld for possible publication/exhibit in the portfolio project. When I have enough candidates, each person will only have one image presented. When I have more than 10 candidates, it is possible that no image of a particular session will be used, the judgement for the final exhibit lies with the photographer.

Next to the exposed pictures, a separate panel will be composed, with a testimonial from each photographed individual, as well as from some people that have given testimony of their inability to pose nude. They will be joined with a portrait of the individual. The name used in conjunction with the images can be changed by each individual.

Practical matters

The shoots will take place in the studio of the photographer, and will take a minimum of two hours, preferably longer because it takes some time to familiarise, discuss eventual questions etcetera. Models can bring an accompanying person, or someone to do make-up or hair.

Sessions can be booked on wednesday afternoons, fridays or in the weekend. Dates to be discussed.

A contract will be presented, in which the individual passes the rights for publication to the photographer. The choices below are to be made by each individual.

… gives the right for publication for image numbers:

…………. / …………. / …………. / …………. / …………. / …………. / …………. / …………. / …………. /

O for exhibitions -> this option must be ticked.

O for printed books/reproductions

O on website O blog O facebook-page* of the photographer (*if not against facebook rules)

O on websites/printed matters for promoting an exhibit or a book

O in specialized photo magazines

O with proper name (first name)

O under nickname: ……………………………………

Conditions

What should a model have/respond to:

A model must be at least 18 years old, and be able to prove this with a identity piece.

A model should be self confident and be fine with posing nude.

A model should be able to come to the studio at the agreed date.

A model will have to sign for abduction of image rights.

Reward

Endless gratitude, and unimaginable amount of fame.

Self realisation and being part of the real sexual revolution.

In exchange for posing, the model will receive the selected images in low resolution digital format.

Prints and (mounted) enlargements can be ordered at fair prices.

thank you so much for reading this presentation/call for models

any inquiries should be made at : ludwig -at- charlemagne-art.be

Ludwig Desmet – Charlemagne

U can find my work at:

www.charlemagne-art.be

ludwigdesmet.wordpress.com

I will soon post some images from the first sessions, so make sure to come again soon.

How to find a good location – shoot with Karen

beauty, Personal Pictures, personal tips & tricks, Tips and Tricks

Some people ask me about these locations I work in.

I have been into urban explorer photography (also called urbex) for a short period of time. I din’t really get far into this. Not that it didn’t please me, but modeling work pleases me more, because you work together with at least one other person to a result. There’s not much conversation possible with an abandoned building or a landscape. (another discipline in photography, that I still do from time to time)

In urbex, most of the locations are very abandoned, and you might get in with permission at rare occasions, but most of the time, you just don’t ask permission, don’t know who to ask to, or just simply don’t bother. This includes the risk of being ‘discovered’ by the owner, the housekeeper or even the police, … (never occurred to me 😉 )

As soon as I started doing model work, I convinced myself that it would not be a good idea getting the police behind my back whilst my model is working on the next intimate pose, or while she’s changing clothes, or some other awkward moment during the shoot. Finding locations is not easy, by far not. It has to be accessible, not too far driving from where you as a photographer are based (preferably), give plenty of light possibilities, give nice decorative possibilities etc. … And you need to get access at the times you want to shoot at.

My one and only advice in this matter is: Try to find the owner of the place, contact him or her, try to make a mutual beneficial agreement. Most people have shown great willingness whenever practically possible. I now have 4 different locations I regularly shoot in, and all 4 owners were very quickly sympathizing with the idea. I mostly offer free photo work – to some degree – if they would need any, be it for family or business matters.

This is what happened with the location of the shoot I’ll show you pictures of in this post:

While riding my motor trough the flemish ardennes (a part of our region called so because it resembles the ardennes – but actually it is more beautiful) I see this beautiful complex that seems like an old cloister, nursery school, orphanage, … and I decide to halt and look if I can find signs of people around.

After peeping trough some windows, knocking on the door, some kind of housekeeper gets his head out on the second floor, talking to me in a foreign language. (Being a Belgian citizen, I do speak and understand quite some languages, but clearly not this one) Impossible to talk to him, but he’s able to point me to a information panel hanging on the wall, that contains different phone numbers of the owner of the place. I have called the owner a couple of days later and she said:

“sure, no problem, I have been a model myself in my younger days. Just call me whenever you want to get in. When there are no groups (the location is rented as a summer camp house for big groups) you’re welcome.”

Easy as that, and something similar happened with the mansion, the old villa, the warehouse and the storage building. So, just ask, don’t ask for the impossible, be polite and be willing to offer some service in exchange. After that, be clear in your communication (when you want to shoot, for how long, with how many people, etc. …) and you’ll have a good chance for a lasting relationship.

One last remark about sharing locations with other photographers. Well, I’m very reluctant about that, and mostly for one reason. It is not because the owner granted me permission to shoot in a certain building, that he/she is also interested in receiving other photographers, or in being bothered by a different photographer every day, … Besides, the exchange offer they get from me, they won’t need it from another photographer, don’t they? 😉

So, enough about locations. I worked with Karen for the first time, first time in this new building too. The sky was cloudy, so there was really not much light inside. It required some searching, trying a lot of different angles, but we managed to get some really nice images after all. Karen told me afterwards “the pictures are really superb”. Thank you Karen.

All images taken with Canon 5D II at ISO 200 (except one at ISO 100), Lenses used in this selection: Canon EF 24mm f1.4 L II, Canon EF 50mm f1.4, Canon EF 85mm f1.8, Canon EF 135mm f2.0 L. All natural light.

happy viewing

Any questions about this post, just ask!

Ludwig

Upcoming exhibition at The Mansion

exhibition, Personal Pictures

you will probably all have noticed that I have been working a lot in the house I named ‘The Mansion’

I have the incredible opportunity to exhibit some of my works soon, at the exact location were they were taken.

Come see the best of images taken at The Mansion in the exhibit “Kunst omhulst in Villa 99” at The Mansion, Ronse – Belgium.

Vernissage october 4th, more details soon. Anyone interested in receiving an official invitation, pls contact me.

Eline V. at the mansion

beauty, people, Personal Pictures

hi, some new pictures from a new girl I worked with at the mansion. She came with her Uncle, who’s actually studying photography where I give classes, so I can present you some behind the scene’s pictures as well. Eline has only little modeling experience, and that is what I like the most. These models are easily posable the way I want, and don’t fall back into standard poses they’ve learnt with other photographers, ore standard poses from the fashion world. All shots done at the mansion, my favorite working location for natural beauty shoots, with a big thank you to the owners of the house!! I found this location with a bit of luck and a good word from one of my customers. I had worked in the building just in front of this one, when the mansion got sold to new owners. My customer introduced me, the owners saw my work, and a few agreements later, they granted me access to this magnificent place. Thank you Eline, for posing, thank you Gino, for the behind the scenes images and for driving Eline to Ronse! I’m sure you can couple some of my images to the behind the scenes shots 😉 Oh, and all pictures taken with natural light, some of them with the aid of a large reflector (thanks again Gino!) come again soon, I’ve photographed Karen at a new location, which I will be calling the orphanage!

some BTS pictures: (you’ll notice that my clothes are really smudgy and dirty on these BTS pictures. You have to know that the mansion is undergoing a full rebuild on the inside, and is thus covered with a layer of dust, from the cave, up to the attic. As a photographer, I tend to lean against walls, go flat on the floor, hang over staircase railings etc. . That’s why.) The very start of the shoot, warming up.

Me preparing the bath for Eline, Eline not sure what to think.

Eline taking a bath with clothes on. 😉

at the top floor of the building, the attic rooms. Dark but beautiful structures on the walls, me working with my Canon 24 mm f1.4 II L for a close up wide angle shot. In the garden, under the beautiful patio building.

Sharon low key studio test shoot

beauty, Personal Pictures

Hi,

I launched a call for models on my Facebook page last week, for some test shoots in my studio.

I’m not really fond of studio work, but that might probably be because I’m not familiar enough with it, so time to work on my skills.

I’m not really into white studio backgrounds, and brightly lit models, so I went for some kind of low key approach. I feel more like keeping some mystery in my images

Sharon was one of the models that volunteered, she’s from the same town I live in, so we can easily fix a render-vous (a get-together) whenever time allows.

I had worked with her in these shoots: Model Sharon – fall and model Sharon I think we both learned a lot since. I’ll leave that for you to judge.

So Sharon was here last thursday afternoon. We worked some different settings, for about 2 and a half hours. I worked a lot with indirect light on the side facing the camera, and just some backlight directly on my model.

The light setup for the first 2 images looks as follows:

One softbox light left of my subject, as high as my light tripod goes, aimed towards the model and covered all around by a black cloth to prevent light spill on the background. The background is a black roll of paper, not white as indicated in the diagram

One big reflector panel at the right side of my model, simple styrofoam, aimed towards the model thus bouncing back light of the softbox.

Gridded and partially covered (with a cloth) torch to the right, aimed at the background, for the soft spot of light on the background.

Model is sitting on a wooden plank, suspended by two shelve racks I normally use to pile up my studio gear.

I used some additional black panels and black cloth to prevent too much light to bounce around in my small studio.

The images were all taken with Canon EOS 5D II and 85mm, 135mm and 50mm Canon lenses. Settings vary.

Don’t forget, all images are clickable for a bigger version.

the other images are with different setups, all based on the same theme.

I will probably study this subject further, so models can always sign up for a studio session.

Take care, and come again soon,

Ludwig

Amsterdam Highlights

Personal Pictures

In my ‘highlights’ series, I had Barcelona and twice Paris (I) and (II), this time I visited Amsterdam hit-and-run style (about 24 hours between arrival and departure)

In short:

Bikes, old and new architecture, canals, (missing) prostitutes, a lot of wind, (noisy) dutch people, good company … and a restaurant cat.

Oh I love strolling around in a big city, taking pictures, watching people, searching for good subjects and good light.

I don’t wanna spend a lot of words on this one. I enjoyed my walks, I hope you enjoy the pictures.

I have taken these pictures with the only lens I had with me, Canon 50 mm f 1.4. It is a challenge worth taking. Take only one lens, look for subjects, frame them.

take care, and come again soon. There’s quite some beauty shoots on the planning.

Ludwig

Photographing the Harley

Personal Pictures, personal tips & tricks

As an end of study assignment for my studio/object module (photography courses at kips.be (Ghent Belgium) we had to propose an object to photograph.

amongst the possibilities were ‘perfume’ or ‘jewels’ …

I wanted to do something more ‘tangible’ and proposed a Harley Davidson motorcycle. My mentor could choose if he categorized it as being a perfume or a jewel. I guess both of the categories apply.

The Harley is not mine, its a customized 1981 Electra Glide from a friend of a friend, and hardly recognizable from the original. François is the owner of the bike.

I had surfed a bit for inspiration too. There’s not so many studio shots of motorbikes on the internet, here are a few:

I had made some preliminary studies in 3D rendering (thats still my main job). I had discussed with my teacher that it would be best to lit the subject indirectly, with a large soft box from above. Since we don’t have softboxes that big at school, I had to come up with something else.

and then the ‘thing’ arrived.

I had shown François where in the school we wanted to shoot the bike. (I had three other classmates doing their work in the proper school studio, so I had to move out to another class) And he just drove it trough the hallways of the school. All students were awake at once on this early saturday morning.

So, what’s next? You see me setting up the tripod and camera.

Checking on the framing, remote shooting with a portable mac, to be sure not to touch the camera in between shots. (I wanted to be sure I could compose different shots together in photoshop afterwards)

Me setting up a flash light for indirect flashing on the cloth. The cloth will serve as a huge soft box area.

The setup, seen from the backside, you can see the tripod in the back:

A big thank you to Serge (classmate) for these splendid behind the scenes pictures!!!

These are the original shots used for composing the final image. Note the shot with the white paper on the floor, for extra light from underneath.

For those interested, the shots were made with the Canon 85mm f1.8 at f10 shutter speed 1/125, ISO 100. Three 600Ws monoblocks at 3/6 upto 6/6 power, indirect on the cloth above.

then the photoshop layered file for compositing. I named the layers in english, for your convenience (dutch is not really an understandable language)

and then at last, the finals, click to see them bigger:

A big thank you to Anita, for bringing me in contact with the owner of the bike,

a big thank you to my assistants of the day – classmates Stef, Serge and Geert,

a big thank you to the owner of the bike, François, for driving about 60 miles to the studio, on a cold morning.

hope you’ve learned something.

take care, and see you soon,

Ludwig

Salomé on a sunday morning

people, Personal Pictures, photo gear, Uncategorized

>Hi,

some weeks ago I did an impromptu shoot with Salomé.

Salomé is one of my nieces, and she needed some pictures for thank you cards.

She dropped in on a sunday morning and we had about half an hour for making some pictures.

Fortunately the weather was great, and since we have had so much rain these last 6 months, the green was GREEN!

I took my two main portrait lenses, 85mm and 135mm, but all these shots are with the Canon 135mm f2 L.

For me this is the best lens I have, in terms of image quality. It has plenty of contrast, even in strong backlit images, it is very sharp, from the maximum aperture on, and it has creamy soft bokeh.

Main advice in bright sun conditions: shoot with the sun in the back of your model. It will prevent your subject from peeping the eyes, and you get a beautiful hairlight (a bit strong I admit) for free.

Images have only slightly been enhanced in Lightroom. I have an import standard of +20 contrast +15 clarity, and I did nothing else.

The best of the pack (in my opinion 😉 )

See you soon for the Harley Davidson images (see my facebook page – Ludwig Desmet)

Take care, and come again soon,

Ludwig

Eline at the Warehouse prt II

beauty, Personal Pictures

The shoot with Eline resulted in so many beautiful images that I decided to make two posts for this one.

The warehouse where we worked is one of my favorite locations in Ronse. It offers plenty in lighting situations, large rooms, corridors, staircases and a mix of contemporary and classic designed furniture (for sale 😉 ). It’s certainly worth the visit. I would like to thank the owners big time for letting me use it for my beauty shoots from time to time.

A word about the processing. I’ve been developing in both color and sepia tinted images. I tend to go more towards the black-and-white images for the more intimate shots, where my subject shows more tenderness and a gentle look. The fashion style images ask more for a color rendition. I don’t know if you agree with this. Just my feeling.

for the technical part, all images have been done with available light. Only the first image with the blue pull-over has an added flash light (highlights from left).

Anyway, I hope you like the images. Thank you Eline, for coming to Ronse and bringing half your wardrobe with you.

Thank you for visiting my blog. Come again soon!

ludwig

All images clickable for bigger size!

Eline at the warehouse prt I

beauty, people, Personal Pictures

ok,

I love shooting pictures, and I love feminine beauty. In the last year I managed to bring those two things somehow together, and I love this combination even more.

I have had a shoot with Eline before, remember Eline at the mansion

Although not a professional model, Eline is was very motivated during our first shoot together, and that made me want to shoot with her again. This time I asked her to think about ideas.

We worked in a different location this time. A very beautiful warehouse in my neighborhood, situated in a historical building of the beginning of the previous century.

I will not write too much words about the shoot. The cooperation was great, I think Eline is a beautiful woman, and she expresses confidence, strength and sensuality all by herself.

The space we used for these images is big (about 10 m wide and well over 15 m deep) On the short north side there’s a huge glass wall, floor to ceiling, which is a great soft light source. I used a bare flash from the other side to create some hair light in some of the images, or to create some fill light for the backlit images.

Overall I was very pleased with the results, I hope you like them too. Thank you again Eline, for being my model on this cold morning.

Thank you for watching. I’ll post the second part soon.

Free shoot results

beauty, Personal Pictures

Hi,

on ‘International womens day’ I gave a free shoot away to my like’s on FB (click here for my FB photography page).

The person who won the shoot gave it to her daughters Kim and Anoek. They are both not really familiar with shoots, but they have done it before.

Only natural light, a single reflector (try-grip) some pushing and pulling in Lightroom 4, no other fancy tricks.

Anyway, on the first of april, we shot for about three hours in two different locations. Natural light means I have no flash lights to set up, no big reflectors to hassle etc. … this works fast!

This telling, I just have to give this advice to all those eager to make better images themselves:

If you are still working in JPG for making pictures, then you should really consider switching to RAW format.

For me the biggest improvement in image quality is two-fold:

1. Switching to a full frame camera (from Canon EOS 450D to Canon EOS 5D mark II) which was huge, in terms of better noise control when working on higher ISO values, better color rendition and larger contrast range.

2. Starting with RAW images in stead of JPG’s. That suddenly allowed me to really work on the entire data captured by the sensor, which means you can push and pull exposure values a lot more, without losing much image quality or details etc. …

Nude Studio shoot – NSFW

beauty, Personal Pictures

Hi,

although I prefer natural light settings, I recently did a studio shoot. The one thing I love about studio is that you can create light exactly where you want, and omit light were it is not wanted.

Typical usage for this is when you want to obtain a low key effect. Only put the light where you want it, and keep everything in the darker tones except some highlighted details.

I’m not really experienced with this, but I love to experiment with it. Especially when I have a willing subject to experiment with.

I got a bit inspired to do this shoot when I saw the latest book from Andreas Bitesnich ‘more nudes’. He however, is really really experienced 😀

This shoot is done with two monobloc lights (Elinchrom 500 BRXi) and some simple styrofoam boards for directing the light, and a black paper background.

At the left a monobloc flashhead with small softbox (60x60cm) at the right a gridded monobloc flashlight, 50% covered with a simple black cloth, because it was too prominent and I couldn’t go to a lower setting. I still wanted some DOF play so I didn’t want to close down aperture too much either.

Two styrofoam boards keep the light within a small area, and prevent flashlight spill on my background.

I hope you like the images!

take care, and come again soon!

ludwig

The best possible add-on for your dslr.

beauty, Personal Pictures, photo gear

I give evening classes for adults, teaching them the very basics of photography. They learn about aperture, shutter speed and iso settings, the basics of composition, light metering, Depth of Field, how to handle their camera etc. …

In about 5 months, they become a bit more aware of the ins and outs of digital photography.

Soon, after a couple of months, the same question comes up in every group: ‘I’m willing to invest in some more equipment, what should I buy?’.

You should see this question in the understanding that most people bought a DSLR (digital single lens reflex) without any technical knowledge about photography, and mostly they have followed the sellers advice of buying a body and a kit-lens (or two kit-lenses).

These zoom kit-lenses generally have a maximum aperture of about f 1:4.0 closing further down to f1:5.6 on zooming.

Especially when we talk about DOF (depth of field) and the relation between the aperture setting and the span of depth of field, my students quickly realize that with their zoom lenses with relatively small maximum apertures, they will never get the result they want.

A bigger aperture setting gives a more shallow depth of field, this means that the bigger your aperture is, the blurrier the background will be. An effect often sought after, to make the subject ‘pop up’ from the background.

So my advice mostly is: ‘buy yourself a good portrait lens, that is a fixed focal length lens, 50 mm for a camera with crop sensor, 85 mm for a full frame camera. It’s cheap, it’s lightweight and small, you can shoot in low light conditions, because the big maximum aperture lets in a maximum amount of light, and it will allow you to work creatively with the shallow depth of field it can give you.’

The best value for money you get with a 50mm f1:1.8 lens, which will cost about 120 € in Canon and Nikon.

Some examples with my Canon 50 mm f1:1.4

see you soon for more pictures!

Take care and happy shooting!

Ludwig

Lisa at the Mansion

beauty, people, Personal Pictures

Lisa came with her mother to the shoot. She’s only 15 years old, and I’ll never shoot a 15 year old without the approval of at least one of the parents. (written, signed contract). She was fun to work with, and presented a very adult attitude when posing. We had some great laughs, something between mom and daughter, and a very good shoot. Direct sunlight is generally not my favorite, but I tried to avoid too strong contrasts during the shoot. I did some different post processing on some shots. I hope you like the results. There’s more to come, so come again soon!

Take good care, and come again soon!

Ludwig

architectural compositions

architecture, Personal Pictures

When I was still in my architecture module (evening classes photography) we were asked to photograph a museum interior with composition in mind. Not the building as such was important in the result, but mainly the distribution of elements in the picture. Not a simple, but a very interesting exercise. Balancing weights, colors, working with lines, structures, perspectives. Photography becomes a very graphical art. The building is a museum building in Ghent, Belgium.

It is absolutely necessary to work on tripod for such an assignment, because this allows you to carefully study your preliminary results, and eventually do very subtle corrections to your composition. I have a tripod with a 3-way head, which is interesting, because you can just modify one axis, without moving the other ones. (vs. a ballhead, which releases all axes at once)

I just noticed yesterday that I hadn’t published these images before, so here they come. Clickable for a bigger size.

Thank you for watching. And remember, any question you have please ask.

Take care, come again soon.

Ludwig

ludwig desmet

beauty and fine art photography

photography

Sofie’s wedding – reportage style

Ines at the Mansion

Beautiful Tuscany

My photography is becoming -me-

Nathalie M. at the Mansion

My Nude (In)cognito project

How to find a good location – shoot with Karen

Upcoming exhibition at The Mansion

Eline V. at the mansion

Sharon low key studio test shoot

Amsterdam Highlights

Photographing the Harley

Salomé on a sunday morning

Eline at the Warehouse prt II

Eline at the warehouse prt I

Free shoot results

Nude Studio shoot – NSFW

The best possible add-on for your dslr.

Lisa at the Mansion

architectural compositions